Quote Originally Posted by Lauront View Post


Part of what Yoshida believes/believed is the approach to making it successful is to listen to one's customers. Not exactly unheard of as a principle in business.
It's entirely possible and even desired in business to listen to your customers but still maintain your own vision and identity. If you constantly act only on the whims of customers, then that becomes unsustainable. Either you start to lose customers because you're too lenient and trying to keep up with demands becomes impossible and causes you to neglect other customers, or you're so inconsistent your customers can't have faith in you. My company actively seeks customer input, but there are some things some of them ask for that are just flat out impossible to accommodate.

I would argue that Yoshida's team has been too lenient and now that they are starting to push back more, people who were used to the old way are unhappy. But setting boundaries is going to be healthy for them in the long run.